Calochortus amabilis

Diogenes' lantern, Diogenes' Lantern

Family: Liliaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Diogenes' lantern is a California native perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, and northwestern San Francisco Bay area in shady and open woodland and scrub at elevations of 100 to 1,000 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces deep yellow flowers with distinctive brown spots, nodding in spheric perianths that remain closed or with petals crossing at the tip. Growing 10 to 50 centimeters tall with generally branched stems, it develops both basal leaves up to 50 centimeters long and smaller cauline leaves. Its leaves range from lanceolate to linear, with lower leaves persisting throughout the season and upper leaves shorter and narrower. The fruit is a distinctive nodding, winged, oblong structure 20 to 30 millimeters long, containing irregular dark brown seeds.

Habitat: Common. Shady or open woodland, scrub

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: 100-1000 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoRO, NCoRI, nw SnFrB.

California counties: Mendocino, Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Santa Clara, Trinity, Solano, Yolo, Colusa, Tehama, Humboldt, Marin, Contra Costa, Glenn, Stanislaus, Alameda, Butte

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.